Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Electrocuted Monkey Given A Village Burial

It was a funeral of a different kind. And this time, the deceased was not a VIP or any other big shot, but a monkey, which was electrocuted in a village, called Venkattampatti in Dharmapuri on Tuesday.

It all started when the villagers heard a female monkey making a strange noise near the panchayat office. Nearby lay the carcass of a male monkey, which was electrocuted after it climbed on an electric post. The female's wails and the tragic death of the male touched the villagers, who then decided to give it a grand funeral.

They recovered the carcass and performed poojas by pouring sacred water over it and covered it with a new cloth.

All rituals performed for humans were done for the simian too. The villagers then paid their last respects to the monkey and carried it in a procession on a paadai made of coconut leaves and bamboo sticks and buried it in the Ellaiamman temple land.

The villagers told this website's newspaper that they had planned to construct a memorial on the spot. The villagers, including women, mourned the death of their beloved one for the whole day.